CD-ROM To USB?

[Fatty Patty]

So I have the old game Zoo Tycoon Complete Collection and I've been wanting to play it again. The problem is I can't find a Digital Download for it and my copy is a CD-ROM, and my gaming PC doesn't have a CD Reader. I've read a lot of forums that say just buy a USB CD/DVD reader, but I don't want to do that. I also read about making an ISO image and stuff but don't know know how. So long story short I wanna put the CD-ROM copy on a USB drive and use it as if it was the disc. If I could get a in depth step-by-step walkthrough that could be great! Or even maybe a video! Thanks for the help! 

[OneJutsuMan]

You could try and use Virtual CloneDrive that worked for me if I wanted to open iso games.

[Ashleyyyy]

OP, you could of course buy an old pc on the used market that meets the requirements and has a cd drive and use that...

[mariushm]

31 minutes ago, Fatty Patty said:

So I have the old game Zoo Tycoon Complete Collection and I've been wanting to play it again. The problem is I can't find a Digital Download for it and my copy is a CD-ROM, and my gaming PC doesn't have a CD Reader. I've read a lot of forums that say just buy a USB CD/DVD reader, but I don't want to do that. I also read about making an ISO image and stuff but don't know know how. So long story short I wanna put the CD-ROM copy on a USB drive and use it as if it was the disc. If I could get a in depth step-by-step walkthrough that could be great! Or even maybe a video! Thanks for the help! 

You can buy external DVD drives that use USB to connect to PC or laptop, they're fairly cheap. Here's a random example from Amazon (it's Lenovo branded, but will work with everything not just Lenovo laptops) : https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Slim-Burner-DB65-888015471/dp/B00GCAYM1U/

 

You can go to a friend or someone with an optical drive and create a disc image of your disc. If you're lucky, there's no disc protection built in and you can create a disc image.

 

imgBurn is a freeware program that can create disc images and has a very friendly user interface  : http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

You can try to create an ISO image of your disc using this tool.

 

You can mount the ISO image as a virtual drive.  I think in WIndows 10, you can mount ISO images directly ... in Windows 7 I personally use ImDisk Virtual Disk driver: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/#ImDisk

After it's installed,  i simply right click on a disc image and select mount as virtual disk and the software creates a virtual CD or DVD drive and it shows up in Windows.

 

[Fatty Patty]

Thanks for all the replies!!! But the disc has disc protection(Disc must be in pc to play the game) so would that effect anything?

 

[Fatty Patty]

49 minutes ago, CutieFX said:

You could try and use Virtual CloneDrive that worked for me if I wanted to open iso games.

Would I just use a program like MagicISO to create an ISO image, and then put it on the USB? Then run it in VIrtual CloneDrive?

[mariushm]

An external USB DVD drive should behave like a regular DVD drive, so if the game has some protection, it SHOULD work just fine.

 

As for your other question, nobody can tell you for sure.  It really depends on what the game uses as protection.

 

Programs like imgBurn or MagicISO create disc images from discs but not all raw data that's on discs is stored inside those disc images (for example in an ISO file). You're not getting a 100% identical disc image with these programs as it's not required for things to work.

 

Some anti-copying protection schemes hide stuff in the DVD in those areas which are not usually copied over by these programs, so if you use the disc image in a virtual drive, the anti-copying protection in the game will not find that data in the virtual drive so it will treat the virtual DVD as pirated and your game won't work.

 

Other protection schemes simply check for the existence of some game files on the DVD, so they're less sensitive and then your game will work. 

 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

7 hours ago, Mio85 said:

It is legal, do you not know what abandonware is?
These games aren't sold anymore. Meaning it's perfectly legal to download them. 
On top of that, OP already owns the game.

Abandonware still has copyright protections until the copyright expires (which is like 25 years or so in the US). Though that doesn't mean someone will go after you, but abandonware doesn't make copyrighted material legal to distribute unofficially.

[Mio85]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Abandonware still has copyright protections until the copyright expires (which is like 25 years or so in the US). Though that doesn't mean someone will go after you, but abandonware doesn't make copyrighted material legal to distribute unofficially.

As long as it isn't sold it usually isn't a problem.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, Mio85 said:

As long as it isn't sold it usually isn't a problem.

It doesn't matter. That's like saying you can go to Gamefaqs.com and repost all of the guides they have because they're not charging you for them even though they're all subject to copyright protections (unless of course the author explicitly states the guide is under a permissive thing)

 

But again, with abandonware it doesn't mean someone will go after you if you distribute it unofficially. But it's still technically illegal to do so until the copyright expires.

[LogicalDrm]

8 hours ago, Fatty Patty said:

Thanks for all the replies!!! But the disc has disc protection(Disc must be in pc to play the game) so would that effect anything?

 

8 hours ago, Fatty Patty said:

Would I just use a program like MagicISO to create an ISO image, and then put it on the USB? Then run it in VIrtual CloneDrive?

 

I wouldn't waste time with USB. You just need ISO and virtual drive (Daemon Tools or Virtual CloneDrive for example). You can have all ISOs in some folder from where you mount them when needed. This will work for most of older games (including BF2 before patch 1.4). You can do the USB way too, but for 700Mb (at most) game ISO on anything bigger than 1gt stick would be waste. You can setup auto-run when USB is inserted so that certain file on that drive is run. But it will be just single file/action per drive. When you could have multiple ISOs on single USB.

[WkdPaul]

Thread cleaned.

 

Telling others to torrent a game or a software isn't allowed on this forum.

 

Same for abandonware, 

[Fatty Patty]

Thanks to everyone that help I think I figured it out! This is definitely the best forum site I've found! Best, quickest, and most reliable source out there!